


Attachments

by regenderate



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-16
Updated: 2019-06-16
Packaged: 2020-05-12 18:14:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,961
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19234492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/regenderate/pseuds/regenderate
Summary: Yaz runs into what she thinks is a cabin for shelter when a beast is chasing her and the fam.It's not a cabin.A story prompted by the idea that Rose and Yaz are similar in a lot of ways and should be friends.





	Attachments

Yaz is running.

This is a common occurrence, these days— she’s been traveling with the Doctor, after all, and the Doctor’s always running somewhere. Or from something.

Right now, it’s the latter. She’s in a forest, the Doctor and Ryan and Graham somewhere nearby, racing to get away from some giant creature that just jumped out of the underbrush and started chasing them.

“Sorry!” the Doctor is exclaiming from somewhere to Yaz’s left. “I forgot the animals here aren’t used to people!”

“Blimey, Doc!” Graham replies. “Didn’t think we were in for the big bad wolf today.”

“What did you say?” the Doctor asks, and Yaz thinks the Doctor might have stopped in her tracks, but that would be silly, they’re in danger, they’re running, but Yaz can still hear the monster crashing through the underbrush, and she isn’t about to stop just to hear whatever the Doctor’s going on about.

She runs, and she runs, scratching herself on thorns and branches as she pushes through bushes and between trees, straining her ears to try and hear whether the others are safe. Finally, just as she’s sure she’s about to collapse and get caught and killed, she sees a little log cabin through the trees. She puts on a burst of speed, not daring to think what might happen if the door is locked.

It’s not locked.

She crashes through, landing on the floor, panting. Seconds pass before she can even look up, but when she does, she is surprised at what she sees.

It’s not a cabin.

It looks— sort of like the Doctor’s TARDIS, really, except all in white, and without crystals— there’s a central console, and a column in the middle, and the room is circular, even though the outside was a rectangle. The room is deserted, but Yaz hears footsteps, and as she catches her breath, a strange woman walks into the room from a corridor on the other side.

“Thought I heard something,” the woman says. She doesn’t seem annoyed, or even all that confused. Yaz pushes herself to her feet.

“Sorry,” she says, still a little out of breath. “I was running— you— I thought this was a cabin.”

“Are you surprised it isn’t?” the woman asks.

“Not really,” Yaz admits. She’s not surprised by much anymore. “This is a TARDIS, isn’t it?”

“Right in one,” the woman says, coming closer. She puts a loving hand on the console, the same way the Doctor does, Yaz notices. “Not many of these around these days.”

“I wouldn’t know,” Yaz says. “Not exactly an expert.”

“Neither am I, really,” the woman says. “Stole this one, figured out how it works, more or less.”

“Who are you?” Yaz asks. The question is overdue, really.

“That’s a complicated question,” the woman says. Of course it is. 

“Give me the short version, then,” Yaz replies. “It’s not like I need your life story.”

The woman pauses. She looks at Yaz with a critical eye.

“All right, then,” she says. “I’m the Bad Wolf.”

Yaz looks at the woman in front of her. She’s about Yaz’s age, white, hair dyed blonde and pushed behind her ears, a sort of kindness in her expression. The only thing that suggests “bad wolf” is the sharp look in her eye, and even then, Yaz suspects that look is more often turned upon strange bits of technology than an enemy.

“Really?” she asks. “Is that what they call you at home?”

“Don’t know,” the Bad Wolf says. “Been a while since I’ve had one.” Yaz realizes that this woman, even though she looks Yaz’s age, is old. It’s in her eyes, the same solemnity that the Doctor has, the same sort of sadness.

“Well,” Yaz answers, because she’s twenty and human and still has a family to go home to, “you’ll always be welcome for tea at mine.”

The Bad Wolf laughs.

“Thanks,” she says. “I’ll remember that.”

Yaz shifts awkwardly.

“I’d better go,” she says. “Got friends.”

“’Course,” the Bad Wolf says. 

“Nice meeting you,” Yaz offers.

“You, too.”

Yaz smiles, and she turns, intending to walk out the door, but then she hears the sound of the TARDIS engines and turns back around, mouth half-open. She’s about to ask what’s happening, but the Bad Wolf has leapt to the console and is frantically pressing buttons, throwing levers, straight-up hitting the console.

“She won’t let me go back,” the Bad Wolf says, a desperate note in her voice. “I can’t— I’m sorry, I’ve only just got her, I’m not great at steering yet—”

Yaz is calmer than she expects from a situation like this. But she’s been traveling with the Doctor for a while, and she’s been in danger, and she’s gotten lost, or separated, and the Bad Wolf doesn’t seem particularly dangerous, and Yaz has grown accustomed to the ways a TARDIS malfunctions.

Usually the TARDIS is trying to tell them something.

“I don’t mind,” Yaz tells the Bad Wolf. “I’ll text my friends, let them know something’s come up.” As she takes out her phone, she remembers Graham’s comment— the big bad wolf— and looks back up. “You’re not related to that thing that was chasing us, are you?”

“What thing?” the Bad Wolf asks.

“Big forest thing,” Yaz says. “Don’t know what it was. Only my friend referred to it as a big bad wolf, and then I met you.”

“I’ve seen those,” the Bad Wolf says. “They’re not as dangerous as you think, once you get to know them. You were with friends?”

“We were traveling,” Yaz explains. “In my friend’s TARDIS.”

The Bad Wolf stiffens.

“Can I ask you a favor?” she asks. 

“Depends what it is,” Yaz says.

“Just— when we get back, maybe don’t mention my name to the Doctor,” the Bad Wolf says. “I’m not supposed to be in his timeline anymore.”

“The Doctor’s a woman,” Yaz says. She remembers the Doctor, frenetic, just crashed through the roof of a train, saying she’d been a “white-haired scotsman,” and reconsiders. “She is now, I mean. How’d you know I was talking about her?”

“Only one left,” the Bad Wolf says. “Well. One of the only ones.”

 _I’m safe_ , Yaz writes in the groupchat she has with the Doctor, Ryan, and Graham. _Trying to find a way back to the TARDIS. Made a new friend. Tell me where to meet you? Anywhere is good. New friend can time travel._

She hits send and slides her mobile back into her pocket.

“So,” she says. “You know the Doctor?”

* * *

 

Rose looks at the girl in front of her, her hair in two ponytails, her eyes wide and curious. If she’s being honest, Rose knew this girl was one of the Doctor’s before the word “TARDIS” passed her lips— a human, somewhere around age nineteen or twenty, panting like she’d just sprinted a marathon and still wide-eyed with wonder? That’s the exact sort of person the Doctor always took to the stars. She’s more surprised to hear the girl mention friends, plural, and she wonders who else the Doctor’s picked up. She remembers her time in the TARDIS with Jack, and with Mickey. It was a long time ago, now.

“You never told me your name,” she says when the girl asks about the Doctor. Evasion, deception, disguise: those things used to belong to the Doctor. Now, they are Rose’s.

“Yasmin Khan,” the girl says. “Yaz to my friends.”

“Well then, Yasmin Khan,” Rose says. “Suppose we’d better see if we can get you back.”

They can’t. The TARDIS refuses to go near the planet they just left. There’s some sort of block to it— they can go a year earlier or a year later, but not the time Yasmin Khan has left.

“That’s all right,” Yaz says. “Don’t know if I want to meet them back there, anyway.”

“This might get weird,” Rose warns Yaz. “Not sure the TARDIS is going to like me trying to find the Doctor.”

“Why not?” Yaz asks.

Rose shrugs.

“It’s complicated,” she says. She idly flicks a wheel on the console. She’s probably sending them to the end of the universe or something. “Sort of a timeline thing.” Another half-truth.

“Did you travel with her?” Yaz asks.

Rose turns to the console, letting her hair fall across her face. She scans a monitor.

“I used to,” she says. She wants to say more, but there’s a lump in her throat, and she changes the subject. “Where do you want me to drop you off?”

She can feel Yaz’s eyes on her, but mercifully, Yaz catches the hint.

“They haven’t texted me back,” Yaz says. Rose can see the worry in her eyes. “But if you take me home I’m sure they’ll find me.” She doesn’t add, if they’re still alive, and Rose doesn’t mention it.

“Where’s home?” she asks instead.

“Sheffield,” Yaz says. “Park Hill Estate. I think we left around January of 2019?”

The Bad Wolf fiddles with the dials and throws a few switches, but the TARDIS does not take them to Sheffield. Yaz half-expected it— she’s starting to think Sheffield is in some sort of complicated temporal disturbance or something.

Or maybe she just keeps winding up in TARDISes trying to get their lonely pilots to make some friends.

At any rate, the Bad Wolf pilots the TARDIS to six different places while Yaz opens the door at each one and shakes her head.

“Sorry,” she says, when after the sixth stop the Bad Wolf leans against the console in exhaustion. “Didn’t mean to interrupt your adventuring.”

“It’s not your fault,” the Bad Wolf says. “I haven’t really figured out how to fly this yet.” She looks up at the spot where the central column meets the ceiling. “Feels like I’m a kid that won’t stop poking at an old dog. It’s being very tolerant, really.”

“Where are we now?” Yaz asks. She has opened the door to see an endless ocean— she slammed the door shut just as the TARDIS began to sink.

“New Mars,” the Bad Wolf says. “About three thousand years in our— your future.”

Yaz hears the slip. She doesn’t mention it.

“It’s okay if it takes a while,” she says. “Really. I don’t mind.”

Her phone buzzes. It’s the groupchat— a text from Ryan.

_YAZ WHERE R U_

She rolls her eyes and types her reply.

_Trying to get back to Sheffield. But you know how time travel goes. Where/when are you lot?_

Ryan’s return text comes fast.

_sheffields good as anything… see u then_

But the next text that comes in is the Doctor’s:

_YASMIN KHAN!! !! !!!!!!!!!!! WE ARE WORRIED ABOUT YOU!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!! !! You’re not with Captain Jack, are you??? ? ?? Look out for him._

Yaz rolls her eyes and sends a reply ( _Don’t know who that is. Woman who picked me up has been nothing but friendly. See you in Sheffield._ ) while saying to the Bad Wolf, “My friends are going to be in Sheffield when we get there.”

“If we ever get there,” the Bad Wolf muttered. She looks up at Yaz. There’s a profound exhaustion in her eyes. “Do you need anything? TARDIS can manage food, drinks, sleeping space. Swimming pool, if you’re willing to look hard enough.”

“I’m all right,” Yaz says. “But I don’t mind— if you’re tired, I mean. We can try again later.”

The Bad Wolf looks at the TARDIS console, then back at Yaz. She has an almost sly smile on her face.

“It won’t take us to Sheffield,” she says. “Might take us somewhere else, though. Nowhere dangerous, if we can manage it. You in?”

“I’ll take the risk,” Yaz says.

“Thought you might say that,” the Bad Wolf says, and her smile curls into a grin.

* * *

Rose doesn’t know what she’s doing. But she’s been doing it alone for a bit too long, and she can’t get Yaz back to Sheffield anyway, and she’s starting to feel a bit useless. She needs a break. It looks like Yaz needs a break. So they’re going to take a break.

“I’ll keep you safe,” she assures Yaz. “Can’t have the Doctor coming after me. Any requests?”

Yaz shakes her head. Her smile is huge— it’s like Rose is looking at herself, age nineteen, ready to explore the universe.

“I’ll go anywhere,” she says.

Rose has said the same thing, in almost the same circumstances.

“Right, then,” she says, trying to think of places she’s been. Places the TARDIS might take her to, if she asks nicely. “Could try New Earth. Or, er, ancient Greece. Kanstano? Upward tropics?”

“Saw that one,” Yaz says. “It was brilliant.”

A pang of sadness hits Rose. Of course the Doctor is taking Yaz to the same places he took her— she doesn’t fault them for it, and she didn’t really expect any different, but the part of her that’s always thought of those places as belonging to just the two of them feels a little betrayed.

“Well,” she says, “we don’t want any repeats, do we? How about Space Florida?”

“There’s a Florida in space?” Yaz asks.

Rose shrugs.

“There’s an everything in space,” she says. “It’s infinite. But yeah, Space Florida. The Doctor told me about it, but I haven’t been. It’s probably a horrific sort of tourist trap, but we’re tourists, aren’t we?”

“I’m happy as long as it’s not an actual trap,” Yaz says.

“Space Florida it is, then,” Rose replies, and turns to the TARDIS console. “Don’t suppose you want to help?”

Yaz is at the console in a second, hands poised above the levers, and Rose smiles. She’s clearly not the first person who’s asked Yaz for help with the TARDIS.

“Just get that one,” she says, pointing. “And when I say go, get the button over there with your other hand.”

Yaz nods, flipping the lever. The engines begin to grind, and Rose presses a few buttons.

“Go,” she says, and Yaz presses hers.

Time travel never used to make Rose dizzy, but it does now— she can feel everything, all of time and space swirling around her, the TARDIS cutting through. She can feel the TARDIS, too, in her head, working with her, sometimes against her. She doesn’t know where or when she is, but the TARDIS knows where she wants to go, and so she can only stand at the console while all of time and space flows around her and hope she winds up in the right place. It’s become frighteningly apparent in recent weeks that it never made much difference what levers were flipped or buttons were pressed, but Rose, like the Doctor, flips levers and presses buttons anyway, and she supposes it must work, because when the engines stop their grinding and Rose follows Yaz to the door, they’re on a glittering beach, blue waves stretching out before them, clumps of people scattered across the shore.

“We did it,” she breathes. She’s been flying this new TARDIS for weeks now, and it’s only just now warming to her. She can feel it in the spark of warmth at the back of her mind, in the gurgle from the console as she and Yaz step out the door.

They find swimsuits in a beachside gift shop— they’re tacky and bright, not quite Rose’s style, but she and Yaz have fun laughing about it as they stake out a spot and lay out towels. The sun is bright, the sand is automatic, the ocean glitters.

“We can leave as soon as you like,” Rose says once they’ve sat down. “I’ve got eternity to vacation, you know.”

“Are you like the Doctor?” Yaz asks. “Immortal, I mean?”

“I think so,” Rose says. “Truth is, I haven’t really figured it out yet. But I’ve still only got one heart, so I can’t be a Time Lord.”

“Time Lord?” Yaz asks.

“What he is,” Rose says. “Or, I mean she, sorry.”

“She never told us the name for it,” Yaz says. “Time Lord. Sounds pretentious.”

“It is, from what I gather,” Rose says. “The Doctor didn’t choose it.”

“That’s a relief,” Yaz says, and Rose laughs.

“Can see why she picked you,” she says.

“I was just in the right place at the right time,” Yaz says. “She wasn’t going to take us with her.”

“She might’ve said that,” Rose says. She can imagine a world in which the Doctor doesn’t want new friends. “But if she let you come, she must like you.”

Yaz shrugs, but Rose can see a hint of a blush. This, too, is like looking at herself when she’d started traveling. Yaz doesn’t have any of the arrogance Rose had then, though— none of the sense that she’s better for being someone the Doctor picked. Just a shy almost-blush. Maybe it does make a difference, that Yaz did the choosing.

* * *

They spend a day on the beach. Yaz usually doesn’t slow down for anything, especially not a vacation on the beach, but now she’s been pushed into it, she has to admit it’s nice. She likes the Bad Wolf, even if she’s strange, old but still Yaz’s age but not in same way as the Doctor. The Bad Wolf is softer than the Doctor, a little shyer, but she has the same steel in her, the same curiosity.

At the end of the day, Yaz and the Bad Wolf agree that Yaz, at least, needs to sleep before they try for Sheffield again (Yaz suspects the Bad Wolf doesn’t sleep much at all, but she doesn’t ask, and the Bad Wolf doesn’t mention it). The TARDIS creates a room for her. It looks a lot like her room on the Doctor’s TARDIS: a double bed with a purple comforter, a fuzzy blue rug, star decals shining on the ceiling. The walls are plain white, unlike in the Doctor’s TARDIS, where small white flowers trail up a pale green wallpaper— jasmine, to match Yaz’s name. There’s no bookshelf, either, but the one on the Doctor’s TARDIS had only appeared after she’d been there a while and started taking things out of the library to read at night.

She changes into the pajamas she finds in the closet and lies awake for a while, wondering where the Doctor and Ryan and Graham are, wondering where the Bad Wolf came from, wondering whether this new TARDIS will ever get her back to Sheffield.

Finally, she falls asleep, and wakes up hours later from a restless sleep, trying to shake herself out of her dreams. She finds a sweater in the closet and puts it on, and then she wanders around until she finds the kitchen, takes a granola bar, and goes back to the console room, where the Bad Wolf is frowning at a monitor.

“Morning,” Yaz says, and the Bad Wolf jumps and turns around.

“Morning,” she repeats. “Sleep well?”

“Not bad,” Yaz says, which is only sort of a lie. She starts to unwrap her granola bar.

“Ready to try again?” the Bad Wolf asks.

Yaz nods. The Bad Wolf turns back to the console, and Yaz takes a bite of her granola bar, suddenly worried. What if the TARDIS won’t take her back, ever? What if she never sees her friends again? Or her home?

She looks at the Bad Wolf, who’s looking up at the central column.

“Please,” the Bad Wolf whispers. It sounds like a prayer, and Yaz realizes that, for all the age in her eyes, the Bad Wolf is just as nervous as she is.

Moments later, the TARDIS lands, and Yaz goes to the door (which now resembles the sort of sliding door you’d see in the back of a minivan) and pulls it open. She’s almost not expecting success, so when she sees the gray-and-orange silhouette of the estate, she’s already halfway to turning back around for another try.

“This is it,” she says instead. She pulls her phone out of her pocket. No new messages. She looks back at the Bad Wolf, hesitates for a moment, then says, “Remember how I said you’d always be welcome for tea at mine?”

The Bad Wolf stares at her for a moment, then glances back at the console, then at the door.

“I can’t,” she says. “If the Doctor shows up—”

“I’ll get a text,” Yaz says. “I’ll sneak you out the back way.” She shrugs. “You’ll have to listen to my mum trying to figure out where we know each other from, though.”

“Not like that’s unfamiliar,” the Bad Wolf says with a laugh. “My mum was always the same way.”

“You’ll be right at home,” Yaz says.

* * *

It does feel sort of like home, to Rose. Not the TARDIS, even though that’s home to her now— not even her home in the other universe with the human Doctor, the one who got older and older and eventually died. No, this feels like an older home, with just her and her mum fighting for each other. A home where if she went missing, people noticed, and not because they assumed she’d been kidnapped by aliens. Sitting at Yaz’s kitchen table while Yaz fusses with the teapot, looking around at the pictures on the walls of Yaz and another girl growing up, Rose feels both out-of-place and like she belongs.

“Didn’t know which kind you like,” Yaz says, bringing a mug to the table along with three different teabags. Rose chooses Earl Grey and unwraps it as Yaz brings a second mug and two little pitchers, somehow balanced in one hand, to the table. “Milk and sugar,” she adds.

Rose adds a bit of each to her mug.

“Thanks,” she says.

“Anytime,” Yaz says with a smile. She takes out her phone. “I’m going to tell the others we’re a couple hours later than we are,” she adds. “So you can get out before the Doctor comes.”

“Thanks,” Rose says again. She takes a sip of her tea, glancing around the room again.

Yaz is still tapping at her phone when Rose hears it.

An unmistakable sound.

Her favorite in the universe.

The sound she fears most.

TARDIS engines are wheezing and groaning right there by Yaz’s flat.

Panic seizes Rose’s movements, and her hand holding the tea jerks back to the table, some of the hot tea splashing onto her thumb. She ignores it and stands up.

“I have to go,” she says. Her voice is quiet and urgent.  
Yaz stands up as well.

“I can show you the back way,” she says.

“It’s all right,” Rose says. “Go find your friends. It was good meeting you, Yaz.”

“Thanks for getting me back,” Yaz says.

There’s an awkward moment during which Rose knows she should leave, she should run and never come back, but instead she hugs Yaz, once, quickly, and says, “Anytime.”  
And then she runs.

She goes out the door, looks over the railing outside to see the familiar blue box parked feet away from her own minivan-shaped TARDIS, backs up just as the blue box’s doors open, darts away from the stairwell. She watches from behind a pillar as Yaz comes outside and goes down the stairs.

Moments later, she hears voices.

“Yaz!” exclaims one. “We thought you might be dead!”

“Don’t be silly,” Yaz’s voice says. “I texted you.”

“Well, I’m glad you’re safe,” says another voice. 

“Thanks,” says Yaz’s.

And then— the third voice is what does it. It’s unfamiliar, and yet, Rose knows it. It sinks deep into her in a way she’s longed for and feared for years now.

“Yaz!” it exclaims. “I was worried about you!”

Rose turns so her back is against the pillar and tilts her head back. It’s been years. Hundreds of years. Hundreds of years since her human Doctor died, since she started trying to figure out how to get back to this universe again. Since she told herself it wasn’t because she wanted to see the Doctor again, she just felt out-of-place in a universe she didn’t belong to, she just wanted to go home.

Hundreds of years, and she still hasn’t admitted to herself that maybe she’s a bit lonely.

But she can’t see the Doctor again. She can’t. The Doctor’s moved on, she’s different, Rose isn’t in her timeline anymore. And Rose has been repeating that to herself over and over. _I’m not in his timeline anymore. I can’t see him. I’m not in his timeline anymore._ And then, in the last day or so: _I’m not in her timeline anymore._

The Doctor won’t love her anymore.

So Rose waits behind the pillar.  
She hears more conversation, Yaz inviting everyone for tea— “Sonya will be home from school soon, but if you’re willing to brave the beast you’re welcome to come up—” the Doctor accepts, to Rose’s surprise, and then she hears footsteps on the stairs, more chatter, the door to the flat opening and shutting, and then Rose thinks it’s safe. She steps out from behind the column. She’s going to have to walk past Yaz’s flat, or maybe poke around until she finds the back way Yaz mentioned.

She decides to rip the band-aid off and just walk past. She takes a deep breath and starts walking.

She’s almost to the stairs when she hears a voice behind her.

“Oi! Are you Yaz’s friend?”

Rose can’t breathe. She can’t turn around. She can’t speak. The Doctor will recognize her, and, well— she can’t have that. But she can’t ignore the Doctor, either, so she just stands, frozen, while the Doctor’s curious footsteps come closer and closer.

“Sorry,” the Doctor says, and Rose can feel her hovering just over Rose’s shoulder. “I don’t mean to scare you.”

And Rose knows the game is up.

Slowly, she turns around, pushing her hair behind her ear. The Doctor’s mouth falls open, and Rose doesn’t move, only stares at the Doctor— she’s blonde, she’s Rose’s height, she’s got a new coat and bold dark eyebrows and she’s staring at Rose with big eyes.

“Rose Tyler,” the Doctor says. “How in the universe did you get here?”

“Not in the universe, technically,” Rose answers. She looks at her feet. “Took me a couple hundred years,” she says. “Had to make sure it was safe.”

“Couple— hundred?” the Doctor asks. “How old—”

“I’m not sure,” Rose says. She shoves her hands into her pockets and bites her lip. “Few hundred years. The other you died, I started trying to get back here. I managed it, and then I was getting around with a homemade vortex manipulator until I ran across the Time Lords.” She smiles. “Think I’m banned from Gallifrey for life.”

All of a sudden the Doctor launches forward and wraps Rose up in a hug. For a moment, Rose is frozen stiff again, but then she lets herself relax, lets herself put her arms around the Doctor. She has tears in her eyes, tears that have been waiting maybe hundreds of years to fall, because she’s holding the Doctor again, her Doctor, and all of her fears seem ridiculous.

Over the Doctor’s shoulder, she sees Yaz emerge from the doorway to her flat. A moment later, two more heads pop around the doorframe, and Rose steps back and looks at the Doctor.

“Your friends are waiting for you,” she says with a smile. She looks at Yaz and the two others. “You going to introduce me?”

“Yaz!” the Doctor says. “Can Rose stay for tea?”

“I already invited her,” Yaz answers, with a grin at Rose.

“Oh, brilliant,” the Doctor says, and her hand slides into Rose’s like that’s where it’s always belonged. “You’ll love her.”

* * *

“So why didn’t you give me your real name?” Yaz asks Rose, once everyone’s settled with their tea and she’s had the chance to tell the others what happened. 

“Didn’t want to get attached,” Rose says. “Should’ve known that wasn’t going to happen.”

“That’s what happens when you travel alone for hundreds of years,” Yaz says. “From what I gather, anyway.” She glances at the Doctor.

“Oh, yes,” the Doctor says. “You totally forget how much you want friends.”

“Suppose I’d better not travel alone anymore, then,” Rose says, a sly tone in her voice.

“Better not,” the Doctor says.

“Is that flirting?” Ryan asks. He elbows Yaz. “Yaz, is the Doctor flirting?”

“Better be,” Rose says. “Haven’t been bouncing around this universe for a hundred years just to be rejected.”

“Definitely not,” the Doctor agrees. She’s smiling— she looks happier than Yaz has seen her, all things considered.

They sit around and drink their tea, and through some miracle of nature, none of Yaz’s family shows up before everyone’s ready to go trooping out again. The Doctor leads the way, with Graham and Ryan following, so that it’s just Rose and Yaz left in Yaz’s kitchen, washing their mugs.

“You’ve still got a chance,” Rose says, completely unprompted.

Yaz stops scrubbing her mug.

“What?” she asks.

“I don’t mean to assume or anything,” Rose says. “It’s just— you have that look.”

“That look?”

“Like you’re in love with the stars.”

Yaz feels herself smile. “It’s that obvious?” she asks, wiping at her mug again.

“The stars have a lot of love to hold,” Rose says. “Don’t give up hope just ‘cause I’m here.”

“Thanks,” Yaz says. Her smile hasn’t gone away. “So you’re going to stay?”

“I think so, yeah,” Rose says. “For now, at least. Maybe forever. Always thought me and the Doctor’d be forever, you know. Never really worked out that way.”

“Maybe this time,” Yaz says.

“Maybe.” Rose sets her mug on the drying rack, and Yaz does the same. “You ready?”

“Always,” Yaz says, and she and Rose step out of the flat together.

**Author's Note:**

> as usual thanks to anyone who's ever talked to me in any discord ever. follow me on tumblr @regenderate/creative blog @burclay


End file.
